MOSCOW, March 29. /TASS/. The Kiev-Pechersk Lavra monks have asked the Ukrainian government to let them stay at the monastery for another six weeks while a court hears their lawsuit to overturn an order telling them to leave by March 29, the monastery’s rector, Metropolitan Pavel of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church, said on Wednesday.
"To date, we have not received a response to my letter on behalf of the monks. We asked to be allowed to stay here through Lent and Easter, for another month and a half," the metropolitan said in a video message on the YouTube channel of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra.
He did not specify to which Ukrainian officials the letter was addressed. The rector also said that the Lavra’s monks filed a lawsuit with a Ukrainian court on March 23, in which they disputed the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra museum’s order to evict them.
He said that by law, the museum and the Ukrainian Culture Ministry don’t have the right to terminate the contract with the monks of the Lavra unilaterally because this requires a court ruling.
"But, as we have seen, judges are forbidden to take our petition into account," the metropolitan said.
The rector said that the three judges who were supposed to consider the monks' lawsuit had recused themselves.
According to Pavel, he held a meeting with representatives of the Ukrainian government on Wednesday, whose names and positions he did not name. According to the metropolitan, he was offered a compromise at the meeting that would run counter to the interests of the church, and he refused.
"One of those people with whom we spoke said that in that case the culture minister should not allow us to stay [in the Lavra] for another month and a half," the rector said.
According to Metropolitan Pavel, the head of the museum monastery told him during the Wednesday meeting that the monks should leave the Lavra now, and the Ukrainian government will allow them to remove their belongings from the monastery within six weeks time. However, the rector of the Lavra said he thought that the property would instead be confiscated by the Ukrainian government.
On March 10, the Lavra published a warning from the acting director general of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra national museum (which answers to the Ukrainian Culture Ministry) on its website. The warning told UOC monks to leave the Lavra by March 29 due to the termination of the lease agreement. The document said that the working group that found violations of the lease agreement had been established by an order of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky.